Secular Abraham: Exploring Abraham’s Righteousness for Hopeful Public Discourse

Abstract

Summary The figure of Abraham occurs both in the Bible and in the Qur`an. In the Bible he is in particular held up as one whose faith is counted as righteousness. Similarly, the Qur`an reflects that Abraham is a ‘pure monotheist’ who will be among the righteous. He is also popularly understood as the Father of Faith, with interfaith and secular discourses representing him as the person who joins Judaism, Christianity and Islam together as Abrahamic religions. This paper considers biblical and qur’anic constructs of the righteousness of Abraham, including the qur’anic portrayal of Abraham as ḥanīf, as figurative of the ethics of hope for secular engagement.